West Memphis Christian falls to Tunica Academy, Knights eliminated from state playoffs in semifinal

West Memphis Christian falls to Tunica Academy, Knights eliminated from state playoffs in semifinal

WMCS’s bid for back-toback titles runs into juggernaut undefeated Blue Devils

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The West Memphis Christian School Black Knights quest to repeat in a crusade to repeat as MAIS A football champions ended in a semi-final loss in the mud at Tunica. The Black Knight offensive attack bogged down in the mire.

“Both teams had to play in the same quagmire,” said Black Knights head football coach Marcus Davidson. “It was so bad it forced us to change our game plan. I feel like we would have won if we could have stuck with what we’d planned. The game was much closer than the score indicated.”

Senior star Black Knight quarterback Parker Benson made the last trip of his career to the promised land scoring the first TD for the team bootlegging into the endzone.

“We faked the counter one way; he reversed it with a dash the the endzone,” said Davidson.

The Black Knights were close at the half anyway.

Down by a score and looking to stay close, the team surprised its rivals to open the second half. Davidson wanted to close the halftime gap. ” We kicked off to them and got our onside kick,” said Davidson. “We knew we did not want to give them a ball again with a chance to go up another score. We executed it well for the recovery and went on to capitalize on it to make it 14-12.”

That was as close as the game got. Tunica outscored WMCS 3:1 the rest of the way.

That’s how it was until five minutes in the third quarter,” said Davidson. “There was some back and fourth and then we scored to make it 30-18. They scored another late for an exclamation point.

The coach and some players move onto the state all-start game in Jackson, Mississippi al- star game.

We have three guys that made it to our MAIS on November 3,” said Davidson. “Parker Benson, Mason Schiedler, and Malik Barrow. I’ll be coaching that as well.”

The team faces a big rebuilding job. Eight seniors graduate from the 20-player roster. Five Juniors step up to take the lead. Davidson complimented the senior class and looked at next year.

“The seniors will be missed dearly, all eight contributed to our season and success,” said Davidson. “It hurts to lose seniors, but especially 8 of our 20. We have a good group of juniors that are up and coming seniors. We will be down on numbers. We look to their future to see what they can do.

Next year’s team may be fielded from depleted ranks, but the playoff caliber private school team does not recruit players.

“We take on any player that wants to come over, but we do not recruit,” said Davidson.

Davidson tipped his cap to the school and its supporters during is first year as the Black Knight head coach.

“I’m proud for the support I’ve had our school staff, my parents, and the fans,” said Davidson. “we look forward to the future of WMCS.”

By John Rech